


Lead

by wonderwoundedhearers



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-06
Updated: 2013-03-06
Packaged: 2017-12-04 10:45:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/709893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonderwoundedhearers/pseuds/wonderwoundedhearers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Art class attendee Gold is beyond inspired by life model Belle, and she’s determined to put lead in his pencil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lead

**Author's Note:**

> When I see wank and unhappiness in the tags on Tumblr, my muse demands counterbalance. Being interested in/knowledgeable about art (among other things) is sexy, and my smut always gets wordy. Sorry, but not really.

5B pencil pressed between his hands, he waited.

Dorothy, the white-haired woman conducting Storybrooke’s community centre life drawing night class – who also insisted everyone call her “ _Dee-gee,_ ” for some reason beyond him – walked about between the ten or so attendees as they sat at their separate easels. Thick art-grade paper sat in the place of each person’s canvas, and where some had brought along last Wednesday’s sketches and drawings, Mr Gold sat only with a fresh piece of paper.

Dorothy, with her smoke-yellowed fingers and mustard-coloured cardigan, smiled at him as she stopped at his side.

“Lovely to see you again, Mr Gold,” she said, in that strange twang of hers, and he gave her a brief nod as his left knee started a steady bobbing.

She spoke to a few others, but only briefly, before taking her place at the front of the class, next to the white, dustsheet-covered armchair that stood as their focal-point.

“It’s been twelve weeks since you all started this class,” Dorothy announced. “And I think, now we’ve weeded out all of the less enthusiastic, you’re all ready to begin with figure drawing on a different level.”

Gold swallowed as the supply closet door to the woman’s right clicked open, and the model came in, an amused quirk to her soft rose lips. She wore only a short silken kimono. Her russet curls were piled atop her head with a paintbrush thrust through to keep them there.

“Belle,” Dorothy said, squeezing the younger woman’s hand as Belle passed to the chair, “has assented to a nude drawing class. Those uncomfortable with this, we’ll see you next week.”

Dr Hopper, sat at the back and looking rather pink in the face, put together his things and left in a hurry. A couple of other attendees followed suit. Mr Gold, however, had no such compunction.

When all was still once more among the seven of them left, Dorothy smiled. “Good. I’ll be flitting about as usual, seeing what you’re all up to! Don’t mind me. Belle, it’s all yours.”

The model smiled and took up the chair. Dorothy stepped down, and...well, it all went to Hell in a handbasket for Gold.

Belle slipped the belt of the robe from its knot and parted the sides of the pale pink silk wrapped about her. It caressed the curve of her shoulder as it fell from its perch on her left side, slipping to the crook of her elbow before she caught it, eyelashes meeting her cheek.

He watched, pencil near-breaking between his curled fingers, as she bared her left breast to the room. A pale handful of flesh, so arresting and topped with a wide rosy nipple, and then the downward plain of her ribs, meeting her soft belly...

He swallowed against the heat rising to his face, before fighting it again as it relocated to the apex of his hitched trousers.

Belle seemed oblivious to the stares of the class, especially of himself, as she let the kimono fall across her thighs artfully, only showing a glimpse of what lay between as she turned and arranged her legs over the arm of the chair.

She looked so comfortable, so _at home_ , and his muse even looked up once she had arranged herself, to look about the class.

Thrown from his musing by Dorothy’s nearing footsteps, he set his eyes to his paper and took a deep breath, feeling the warm wood and cool lacquer of the pencil in his hand.

His heartbeat stopped slamming in his ears long enough for him to at least glance up and take dimensions, putting pencil to paper. Not that he needed to – he knew her shape by heart now.

Her legs were long, her hips rounding into her thighs, and her knees – though he had only seen them once before – were pinked and dimpled at the sides. Her toes were small, rounded, and her belly had a sweet curve to it, so gentle he could only see it by the bright light from the fluorescents overhead. Her arms were slender, her wrists so delicate, and her elbows had a rounded point. Her shoulders were rounded, her neck sweeping up in a graceful line to her small and delicate ear. Her jaw-line was defined but ever so slightly soft beneath the chin, especially when she tilted her head to look down. Her nose was a gentle slope, coming to a rounded point, and the tiny notch beneath her nose dipped quickly into the cupid’s bow of her full mouth. Her eyes were thickly-lashed, wide, and startlingly bright. The apples of her cheeks blossomed when she smiled, the gentility of her fine cheekbones giving way to her humour, and dimples ever so slightly graced the corners of her mouth.

He’d already half-drawn her before he knew what he was doing and where the time had gone, and then Dorothy was standing at his back, pointing over his shoulder at a particular line of Belle’s thigh that curled into the sweet haven of her hips.

“Expressionist,” she accused with a smile, like she did every class. “First Belle was vengeful, then she was full of longing, and now, look at her. The star of her own piece of art, her womanhood the _very_ focal point, like Aphrodite.”

Gold cleared his throat and nodded, waiting for Dorothy to pass on before glancing up at Belle again. He was about to take on the task of mapping the new flesh available to his eyes – the slopes and curves of her breasts, the smooth skin of her sides – when their eyes connected.

She had never, ever looked at him before for longer than a moment, and this perusal of hers made him feel as if _he_ were the model. She studied him, and he was caught in her gaze.

And then her pearly white teeth met her full lower lip, _pressing_ , and he snapped his pencil clean in two.

The first time he’d attended the class, he hadn’t taken note of the model. He’d been too caught-up in watching his wife flirt across the room with another student, too fixated on the smiles passing between the couple. He’d only taken the class in the first place to please Milah, after she had complained time and time again that she wanted to _do_ something, that she wanted to _get out_.

Gold hadn’t realised back then just how literal her words had been.

The divorce had come not two weeks later, and the custody hearing of their only son soon after. Gold had drowned himself in Scotch and lost himself in a haze of hand-rolled cigarettes before it was decided that Baelfire could live with him on the weekends.

By the time Bae started coming home – his _true_ home, not the apartment out of town that Milah had bought with her settlement – Gold had been half-wrecked, and only his boy had been able to pull him back from the brink, making him promise to give up the smoking and drinking with ‘ _Try_ , Papa – _please_ , try.’

For his son, he had. But the week was long between visits, and being a pawnbroker and antiquities dealer was not enough of a distraction to keep Gold from returning to his drink cabinet and pack of papers.

He’d had to find other pursuits, and it had been one late night, driving to the local bar in his Cadillac, that he had spied the lights in the community centre off of Main St. and the sign outside announcing an art class.

He’d dimly remembered an old woman he’d snapped at and his wife’s flirting, but it was still a distraction and better than a drink.

Gold had stepped inside and been welcomed, even though he had been a recluse for more than a year during the upheaval of his life and family. He’d been encouraged, and challenged, but, above all, _enticed_.

He hadn’t expected much in those early classes, but he’d been drawn in by the seductive nature of charcoal and ink, paint and paper, and it seemed to be something he was good at, if Dorothy’s praise was anything to go by.

They’d quickly moved through still life of fruit and teacups, to caged birds and pets, and then Belle had come along. He’d recognised her face but hadn’t been able to remember her name. She had never come to him to barter or deal, and she had been ineffably charming, personally introducing herself to every member of the class.

She’d worn her hair down, kicking off her pumps when Dorothy had directed her into the chair at the front of the class, and Gold had been taken with her from that moment onwards.

When Belle was near, his canvas was never empty. It was full of her eyes and her brightness, her zeal for life and her softness. She had posed for them – for _him_ – in a handful of ways, and yet he saw her everywhere.

At work, his mind’s eye portrayed her lying prostrate across the counter of his glass cabinet, the uplighting in the case beneath her outlining her seductive figure through her dress. The image of her also often found him in his back room on his break, sat opposite him with a cup of tea and a charming smile on her lips. At home, it was more difficult to get rid of thoughts of her. There, he had the tools to take down these images of her on his table, his bed, facing away from him in his kitchen as she stood at the sink, smiling up at the sky as she wandered through his garden...

He had so many sketchbooks, so many canvases, so many scattered pieces of paper all with these fictitious scenarios, and he cherished every single one. Some were realistic, some half-finished, and some were in his own style, so scattered and colourful that when Bae had stumbled upon them and questioned his father about them his son had been unable to make head nor tail of them.

When the moment took him, as it so often did with Belle, his hand simply moved and his eyes followed.

It had only been a couple of classes in that he’d discovered more about her, about her life in Storybrooke, and though he was sure that she would have readily began a conversation with him like the gentle soul she was, he was loath to reveal his interest and possibly sour what he already had with the younger woman.

If he didn’t ask, then he didn’t know, and if he didn’t know then it kept the fantasy alive that she wouldn’t turn him down. It was a small and silly hope that he tried not to mock himself for holding.

He’d found out more about her when her father, Moe French, had come to his shop to beg an extension on the money owed him. Mr Gold wasn’t anything if not a businessman, and though not intentionally cruel, his bite was much feared about Storybrooke when it came to crossing him.

Moe French’s saving grace had been his accidental mention of his daughter, Belle, waiting for him back home for the news. Gold had been unable to deny the man after that, thinking of the town’s librarian (as he had later discovered from Bae) with her face pinched in sadness and a troubled mind, especially when he was able to remedy her distress.

He’d been paid in full after that, with interest for his trouble, and he was still as sure as he had been then that it was Belle who had put in that little stipend of a thank you, rather than her hard-up father.

Mr Gold blinked down at the two splintered halves of pencil in his hand, the graphite lead shattered and smudged across his palms and between his fingers, before looking up again and finding Belle French’s lip was still being teased by those pretty teeth of hers.

Dorothy – fortunately or unfortunately, Gold couldn’t decide – called time on the lesson at that moment, causing Belle to pull her bright azure gaze from his own owlish stare. She closed her robe about her beautiful breasts and tied the sash once more, standing to take Dorothy’s outstretched yellowed fingers in a handshake.

Gold felt sluggish, as if he were moving through molasses, as he brushed off his black trousers and stood to put away his easel in the corner with all the others. He was the last to put away his equipment, in his painfully out of place black suitcase, and he was the last to gather together his things to leave the room. Last, behind even the teacher herself.

The only person who did not precede him was the one person he looked back for.

He was lifting his suit jacket from the back of his stool when he noticed the supply closet door across the room was open, the light on, and curiosity, he was reluctant to admit, got the better of him.

Gold crossed the grey lino floor and took the cool silver handle of the white door in-hand, peering about the edge.

Amidst the shelf stacks lining the sides of the small rectangular room there were stored items and equipment from other classes that took place in the community centre. Brightly coloured hula-hoops and wooden-handled jump ropes, a silvery deflated yoga ball and a dusty typewriter, tattered twirling ribbons and battered batons, a string-less acoustic guitar and boxes of sheet music, and then, at the very end of the room between the steel shelves, a small drawer-less desk and wooden chair.

Belle stood with her back facing him, her copper hair still piled atop her head so her pale neck was bared to him and the robe still firmly wrapped about her. She thumbed through a bag of her things, before setting it on the chair.

Gold watched her for a moment, fascinated with the way her calves tapered in at the knee and how soft the skin behind the joints looked, before realising that her hands were busy and the kimono was dropping.

She bared those lovely shoulders to his hungry gaze, fingers slipping the silk down her arms until the robe fell into the crook of her elbows, wrinkling softly there like she were shedding her very skin.

She was otherworldly, this woman. This Belle. _His_...perhaps?

His fingers curled about the wood of the door, something screaming inside his fogged head to turn away and stop looking, but she was his _muse_. She was glorious and naked, pinkly pale and creamy skinned, the robe falling about her hips before slipping entirely to the floor and pooling there.

Gold had never imagined himself in a situation like this before, where there was desire inside of him with just as much strength as his iron-clad will. There was no self-mastery to speak of in the face of Belle French’s naked body, nor her unflinching blue gaze suddenly peering at him from over her shoulder.

She was a siren, and he was caught.

For the life of him, he couldn’t remove his fingers from the door, lest he actually fall on his arse. He was left to watch as she took him in – his charcoal-blue shirt and burgundy silk tie, his golden cufflinks and polished shoes – and then she smiled.

She didn’t turn, letting him keep his view of her pert and curved flesh and the graceful line of her spine. She was Waterhouse’s mermaid, surrounded by her flotsam and jetsam, and, as a man who not only appreciated fine things but made it his _business_ to, he was so drawn to her it was painful.

In that moment, he could think of nothing better than to run his fingers over the half-invisible notches of her spine and press his face into her hair. Was she as sweet-smelling as she looked, as her kindness and gentleness indicated?

He swallowed, heart thudding hollowly, and was about to shut the door and run, or something far braver, when he heard footsteps up the hall to the classroom door. He would have closed the door, he thought, if Belle hadn’t turned on the spot and strode up to him that second, pulling him inside the closet with her.

The bare light bulb above their heads made the dust motes in the air glitter as the door shut, but even that, happening right in front of Gold’s eyes, didn’t distract him from the fact that Belle, naked and watchful, stood right in front of him, chest heaving so close to his.

His eyelids fell ever so slightly, his breath coming harder at the look in her eyes and her restless breasts. His thumbnail itched to tease her burgeoning left nipple, but he stood still, only half-aware of someone moving about in the room outside.

He could smell her now she was this close. There was a sweet fragrance that clung to Belle, and a perfume that reminded him of scented hand cream, but it was the hint of musk that interested him the most. It wasn’t a delicate scent like the others. It hung between them, drawing him in, and there was no way to mistake it as other than _Belle_.

He had always been a man who could take a hint, but there was an enormous chasm of a difference between taking a hint and taking _her_.

With the most serious face he had ever seen her wear, she took his right hand in her left and brought it to her hip. Her skin there was as soft as he’d imagined, and though his eyes caressed her shape and where his palm moulded to her curve, his gaze was inexorably drawn back to hers.

Belle’s lips quirked with a little smile when their eyes met, like she had a plan and it was going beautifully. He couldn’t say he minded. At all, in fact.

He could hear movement outside again, sounding like someone was sweeping, but that was the only deduction he could muster before Belle arrested him and consumed him whole.

She moved closer, so close that, he in his shoes and her with her bare feet, her breath only met his chin, but she tilted her head and he his, and then they were only a whisper apart. His back met the shelf behind him, and Belle followed, hands coming up to slide over his shoulders.

Her fingertips met his neck, searching up past his collar as her eyes rolled down his tense body. Bringing her gaze back up, fingers curling into the hair that brushed his shoulders, she brought her body with it, and then there was no space between them. Not a mote or a molecule between the straining below his black leather belt and her soft, naked belly.

A noise caught in his throat, their breaths sounding as loud as whistling steam in his ears, and he seriously doubted that he would be able to keep quiet through whatever came of their embrace.

The steady _swish, swish, swish_ of the sweeping was moving further away, but Belle’s toes were climbing higher up the outside of his ankle, taking his trouser leg with her, until she met the strip of flesh between the top of his sock and the elastic strip of his sock-suspender. She wrapped her leg about him and curled her toes there, below the back of his knee, and his cock leapt the same moment his sanity jumped ship.

Gold’s hands, without real thought, matched Belle’s own inquisitiveness. While one group of exploratory fingers set about tracing the curl of her collarbone and dipping into the soft notch at the base of her throat, the other group dropped to make camp at the tempting curve of her backside.

He couldn’t resist squeezing the soft flesh, bringing her closer against his needful body.

Belle shivered against him, eyelids drooping, and then, all at once, there was no more tentative teasing and gentle exploration. There was kissing, pressing lips and teasing tongues, and the bump of teeth before the forceful correction of her hands holding his face while her fingers dove into his hair.

Her soft tongue licking at his drove a groan from his throat, but her lips muffled the noise, dragging him deeper into the dark and warm little place they were creating. The cold and hard metal shelves weren’t a drop in the ocean compared to Belle’s warmth seeping through his clothes, driving him to maddeningly roll his hips against her.

Rash and instinctive, yes, but the jolt didn’t make Belle pause or reconsider. No, she slipped her mouth from his and pressed it beneath his chin, trailing sweet little sucks down to the line of his shirt collar, where she promptly buried her teeth.

Only the faintest noise found its way past his lips, which he absently counted as a miracle, his face twisting with the desperate and fierce lust that was roaring through him. He wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d started baying to the light bulb.

Gold wanted Belle as breathless as him, and though her arse was too much of a distraction for his right hand to give it up, his left had no qualms in slipping up the hot, silky skin covering her ribcage to cup her soft breast.

She gasped against his jaw, lifting her head, and he felt, more than heard, the sharp intake of breath. Her fingernails bit into his scalp as his thumb brushed her rosy nipple, her chest heaving, and then those fingers of hers went about their business once more.

Gold knew then that Belle would give as good as she got, if not better.

Belle kissed him hard, drawing him in with her soft mouth until he realised too late that her busy fingers had already shed him of his tie with a hissing _thwip_ and were currently working on his shirt buttons. He was lost to her, fumbling, and he tried to catch up with her fingers wandering his chest, but they dipped to the sparse trail of dark hair descending from his navel and he was rocked stupid.

Gold watched and waited and panted as Belle broke their kiss and threw apart the sides of his shirt, her fingers next curling beneath the soft strip of his belt.

She tugged him close, a grin curling her lips, and away from the shelves, walking backwards towards the desk and urging him along with her. He needed no persuasion, dogging her footsteps unsteadily as he sought to keep contact with her skin.

Gold nudged away the chair, ignorant of the noise it made as it scraped against the floor, and stepped up close to the woman in his arms, leaning into her and enjoying the way her head dropped back onto her shoulders as he pressed her against the edge of the desk.

Her lips met his ear as his nose trailed up the soft and delicate skin of her throat.

“ _Gold_ ,” she barely whispered – a breath, nothing more.

Hearing her voice – shaped from her upbringing, just like his – after so much thick and heavy silence was like the sweetest reprieve and the fiercest motivator.

He’d tell her his first name soon enough, he thought as she moved against him, just to hear it from her lips.

On her toes, she lifted herself onto the desk, sitting back only far enough so that she could sit and let her legs cradle his hips. She was the perfect height for him to press his hips to hers now, one hand curling about her hip while the other slipped up the inside of her thigh.

Gold glanced down only briefly, tangled in Belle’s slender limbs, to watch his thumb as it slid closer to the apex of her thighs. Belle wriggled as he took her in – the small dark triangle of hair gracing her mons, the pink and silken folds of her slit, and the flushed bud of her clit – before going completely still.

His thumb rested in the uppermost notch of her slit, barely nudging the damp nub beneath, but still her nails dug fiercely into the flesh of his shoulder blades through his shirt and she tucked her face into his neck to let loose a deep moan that vibrated pleasantly against his pulse.

His fingers preceded his thumb in the gentle exploration of Belle, petting her and drawing through the silky wetness that met his fingers as he teased, drawing muffled moans and insistent tugs from her.

Breathless, heart hammering, he marvelled at how she felt, how tight and smooth and _real_ , as he pressed his fingers inside of her, his thumb drawing down to press against the pearl of her clit.

Gold had a thousand thoughts, a hundred ideas, and though he would have more than enjoyed dropping to a knee between her silken thighs and pressing his face between, it was not to be.

He was thwarted by Belle’s travelling hands, and she pulled back from him to watch what she was doing as she unbuckled his belt and set to free the buttons of his trousers from their holes.

Her lithe fingers, moving against him and brushing his hard cock, drove him half-mad before she even managed to start on his striped boxer shorts.

She smiled at the sight, even as her fingers wriggled beneath the elastic of the waistband and tugged them down. Clothes shed to mid-thigh, his cock bobbed free, and Belle caught him.

Jaw clenched, he struggled not to moan, legs bending and hips gravitating towards her soft hand.

He hadn’t underestimated her, he blearily thought as her fingers flexed tantalisingly about his length, he just hadn’t considered that she was _such_ a temptress. She had so many layers Belle, and each of them more lovely than the last.

The soft pad of her thumb caressed the flushed head of his cock, her tongue teasing her reddened bottom lip as she hungrily eyed his expression, and his knees _shook_.

He barely had the presence of mind to breathe, “ _Condom_ ,” but Belle shook her head at his faint gasp, glancing down for him to follow her gaze and find a minute bump in the skin of her upper arm.

An implant, he realised after a long and bemused second. _Bare_ , a hushed voice in his whirling head unhelpfully whispered.

And then she shifted, gently urging away his hand still pressed between her parted thighs, and drew him nearer with the fingers encircling his cock.

He gripped her hip as he inched closer, desperately grabbing onto the edge of the desk with his other hand as the tip of him met her wet slit. Belle shuddered, head dropping back, and pulled him against her just that bit more with the pressure of her heels.

Gold rocked into Belle, halfway inside of her on the first jerky thrust, and then she couldn’t move fast enough, couldn’t wrap herself about him quick enough as he, groaning, drew back to pump his hips again, _harder_.

Back arching and mouth parting in a silent cry, Belle crushed her breasts against Gold’s bare chest, making him shudder and shunt and causing the desk to audibly _thump_ against the wall.

Shoulders hunching, face growing hot, Gold stuck his hand between the desk and the wall lest he alert the outside presence or fuck a dent into the plaster with the force behind his thrusts. What a sweet reminder of this that would have been though, a hollow strip in the pale yellow wall, a permanent memento.

But, no. Bruises would have to do, across the backs of his knuckles, as Belle coiled herself about him and kissed him feverishly, causing his backside to clench and his hips to jerk forward at a particularly arousing lick against the corner of his mouth.

He returned her attention in kind with a sort of dopey, breathless wonder that didn’t surprise him in the least. She was actually here, in his arms, drawing him into her and begging him with her wide blue eyes not to stop.

Forehead pressed to hers, he stared at her and she at him. From the jolting of her breasts in time with his thrusts, to the way she bit her lip when the entire length of his cock was buried inside of her sweet cunt, he saw it all. And he was entranced.

His dampened hair fell about their faces, and coils of her russet curls fell across her shoulders, setting off the blush crossing her breasts. Their stifled grunts did not leave the space of hot and damp air between them, and Gold wasn’t sure whether it was the effort to keep quiet or Belle herself that heightened the pleasure behind every twitch of her fingers and every roll of her hips, but he could hazard one hell of a guess.

Suddenly, Belle was nodding, rolling her hips so feverishly against his that the edge of the desk pressed even harder against his voluntarily trapped hand. The dull pain set off the blinding pleasure, and he was so _close._

But so was Belle.

Before he could make a last effort, trade his pleasure for hers, or any of the things a good lover was _supposed_ to do, one of her hands at his nape was displaced and reappeared at his backside, grasping the tensed flesh and drawing their hips together, hard, _one last time_.

He was wrecked in an instant, no hope of holding on or seeing her to sweet completion with her wrapped so tightly about him and no barrier between them. He shook and trembled as his mouth shaped itself about a silent gasp and his balls drew up tight against his body.

It was only as he came, hard and thick and shaking, that he realised he wasn’t going over the edge alone. Belle closed her eyes and threw her head back, trembling and smiling like she could hear a bloody angelic chorus.

Gold absently thought he might have heard it too over the noiseless thundering of bliss in his ears.

When he was spent and she was boneless, there was nowhere for them to fall but against each other, mouths meeting for the briefest, breathless second. It was then, supporting himself against the desk with strained arms and breathing in Belle’s scent against the crook of her neck, that he shifted his footing and dislodged the buckle of his belt from his fallen and crumpled clothing.

The end of the belt flopped to the side, and with the loudest _clank_ the buckle met the hard floor.

It had been a true feat of strength that they hadn’t uttered more than a whisper. It had been a blessing that the sounds of flesh-on-flesh hadn’t travelled far. It had been a fucking _miracle_ that the desk was sturdy enough to take them without creaking or groaning.

The sound of the buckle counterbalanced all of that good luck.

Gold heard sharp footsteps precede the door opening at his back, and there was nothing to do but curse his belt and hope for the best. He didn’t move, to spare Belle the person’s gaze, but she still lifted her head and peered over his shoulder.

At first, there was a sharp intake of breath, and he was prepared for a yelp or a shout but not the voice that followed. It was Dorothy.

“Mr _Gold_! How _dare_ you take advantage–”

Belle, much to his surprise, cleared her throat and cut the old woman off. “Dee-gee? I...uhm, _wanted_ him to.”

He briefly glanced over his damp shoulder to see Dorothy’s pique fade in an instant. She wasn’t outraged over the act itself or taking advantage of an empty closet, he realised, but that he might have taken advantage of _Belle_ and the nature of her modelling.

He was, at least, glad someone was keeping an eye on her, even though it was Belle doing most of the advantage-taking in the first place. _Not_ that he was complaining. No, not an inch.

“Oh.” He saw the old woman smile. “Carry on.”

And then she shut the door.

Belle’s hands turned Gold’s face to hers, and she smiled at the bewildered expression he was undoubtedly wearing.

“She was captured by an artist once, too. She knows,” Belle said, as softly as if they had to keep quiet still.

He rather thought she meant more than just being tangled up in a closet with one, and his heart thrilled. Courage stole over him as easily as the smile that crossed his lips.

“Do you...want to get a coffee?” He gruffly soldiered on. “Now, I mean.”

Belle’s face brightened with her wide grin. “Well, I prefer tea.”

An ache in his shin – a war wound of this evening, he thought – chose that moment to make itself known. He shifted his weight, shuddering as he slipped from Belle’s sweet body, and glanced down.

A frown crossed his face at first, replacing his smile from her acceptance of his offer, before he realised what he was looking at. Belle’s eyes followed his line of sight and she laughed.

There, sat atop the desk, she was his very own masterpiece – a veritable Botticelli – covered in thumb-sized grey marks from the now-vanished pencil lead smudges on his hands. Trails and spots covered her breasts and thighs, and he was sure, should she have turned around, he would have found a handprint across the back of her too.

She hummed, causing him to glance up to meet her gaze and notice a smudge of graphite on her jaw as well. “A shower wouldn’t go amiss.”

Before he had even the slightest notion of being disappointed – knowing as he did that Granny’s wasn’t open _all_ night – Belle quirked a shapely and tempting eyebrow.

“I have all the right ingredients for tea in my apartment,” she told him, taking on a hint of playful faux-innocence, and he would never be in any mind to decline his muse.

After all, seeing Belle in her home might give him a few new ideas for poses. None of which would be suitable for the night class.


End file.
